h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"So what do the Welsh/Scandanavians/other Europeans/American etc think of les frogs?"

Haven't known many. A couple of weekends ago, I went to visit a friend at U of I, and we hung out with (and I bunked with, becasue she had a dorm room, with bunk beds, all to herself) a friend of hers who is French. She was really cool and fun and all that good stuff.

She had olive oil in her room, to put on bread. Is that common in France? Putting olive oil on bread?

Are you sure it was for her bread?

yup - I love a bowl of really good olive oil to dunk good quality bread in.

My flat mate is French and bordering on psychotic! But that is nothing to do with her nationality.

"At age 10, all Spanish students are taught that everyone else is deaf and that conversations need to be shouted, prefereably all at the same time."

Is Spain a very crowded place, by any chance? My dad's from Egypt, and he and his brothers are like that. He thinks it's becasue when he was in Cairo, if one wanted to have a conversation wherein others can hear what one is saying, one has to speak very, very loudly... and it becasme a habit.

I speak very loudly too, though, and I'm from a quiet place, so I think the being heard thing might be BS, and it might just be soemthing genetic w/ the vocal chords.

I think it's genetic, but I don't think it has much to do with vocal chord structure. My whole family is loud, including me, and I think it is because we are just a bit on the exciteable side... once we get truly emotionally caught up in a conversation, the volume rises. And generally, we can't tell we're doing it until whoever we are talking to complains, "Geezus, do you have to shout? I'm standing right here!"

The English hate the French because the English cant cook. The French are great cooks. (Of course one can eat in the Indian restaurants that abound in London if you like an overdose of sugar).

I have yet to meet anyone who would say my mother can't cook.

PS What do you get in France if you fail your driving test three times in a row?


Answer: Yellow number plates


Da-Daaahh!

Yes the French do have a sense of humor. It is, however, definately well below the belt line.

Even in private conversation, humor has its place with a certain "marivaudages" that goes on.

Are you suggesting the English are sane drivers? You do have a sense of humor, dont you? In England, not only is the driving done in retrograde, but its 2 feet on the throttle and 2 feet on the brake throughout England.

Why do the English hate the French?
For exactly the same reason that they hate everybody else who isn't English.

The English certainly aren't perfect drivers, but I don't think we're by any means the worst in Europe. I'd rather not stir up further unpleasantness by pointing the finger at any particular country or countries, but I suspect statistics would support my view, as does my experience of continental driving.

Origami please explain marivaudages. My husband, who teaches French, doesn't know what it means.

Why do the English hate the French? Because they're so similar. Other examples include the Turks and Greeks, the Koreans and Japanese - they can appear very simlar to those who view them from afar but they're not impressed if you confuse one for the other! On the other hand a Korean, for example, would not be offended (although he might be confused) if you thought he was a Turk , Icelander, Nigerian, etc...

In a way it's like a bizarre sibling rivalry! Differences between them are accentuated to make the point they're different and the realities of geography often mean they have been at war at various times. Often they can become best of friends when they are placed together in a foreign environment far from home, where what they share becomes more obvious and important.

But why say that the English and French are similar? In the same way you could say the English and the Dutch are similar or the French and the Portuguese or French and Spanish. There are points of similarity anywhere. Does this apply to say Swedes and Finns or Swedes and Norwegians, Czechs and Slovaks etc?

I would say the French are very different than us English...

BUT:-

The recent petrol crisis with people blockading and blocking off roads seems to be VERY FRENCH in origin, and has its roots with the French farmers' escapades, and more recently the French fishermen.

ADDENDUM:-

This is not a SLUR on the French, more like a slur on my own counrty men and women...

The French peoples revolution possibly instilled in them some kind of power to stand up for themselves when they are not happy with the govt.

But us English seem to have more of a crushed spirit and things have to get REALLY bad before the public stand up for themselves.

We're back to an accident of geography again.
In reality we probably have more in common with the Dutch, Germans, Danish and Scandinavians in terms of ancestry, commerce, language, religion and/or humour.
We simply happen to be physically closest to the French. It's not their fault or choice, any more than it is ours.

That's the point I was trying to make. Perhaps humans have a basic instinct to hate something.

You can only hate something you don't know anything about. I would maintain that even if you hate someone close to you the reason is some part of them you do not realise exists, or do not understand.

And so. too, on a national level, you will generally only find people generalising about and hating races they do not understand or know. So it doesn't matter which ones they choose really. The first ones that come to mind when you're in Britain is the French , so they are the scape goats.

Hate is pretty much akin to jealousy (do we envy thier backbone when we are stuck with out stiff upper lips? lol) and also to fear or xenophobia... The French have very different attitudes to the British and visa verso, so that causes friction.

I have never been to France, and dont particularly like OR dislike the French.

People are people, more or less, good and bad in whatever country you can name.

Hear! Hear!